Little Atoms Road Trip 27 – Leslie Brunetta

In Cambridge, Mass. on his last day recording interviews, Neil paid a visit to writer Leslie Brunetta. Leslie Brunetta is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, as well as on NPR and elsewhere. An English graduate of both Princeton and St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, she is the co-author of Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating with Catherine L. Craig, who is an internationally recognized evolutionary biologist, arachnologist, and authority on silk.

Leslie Brunetta seemed to be struggling with evolutionary biology. She mentioned how humans were such “agents of their lives” and thought that this agency had something to do with evolution. She also started to express the idea that random mutations could not explain evolution, but cut herself short with the observation that natural selection is not random. She does not understand evolutionary biology because she is anxious about intelligent design. She doesn’t understand why intelligent design is irrational, but knows that if she shows any agreement with it her career and relationships are at an end. Thus, she needs the following explanation of evolutionary biology:

Evolution is a theory that explains the existence of fossils and other data. It gives rise to the question of what caused evolution. Intelligent design and creationism are answers, but there is no evidence for either of these theories. There is evidence for natural selection, but natural selection only explains adaptation, not common descent. Evolutionary biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution.” No biologist thinks natural selection acting upon innovations explains the complexity of life.

Advocates of intelligent design compare this theory with natural selection to make ID look better. Atheists go along with this scam because they don’t want to admit ID is a better theory than natural selection, in some sense.

“Atheists don’t want to admit ID is a better theory than natural selection in some sense”

In what sense is ID a scientific theory?

It speaks of intentional top-down design. A notion dispelled by evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory speaks of a bottom-up gradual adaptive process which produces the illusion of design, and which has studied examples of faulty adaptation and failed experiments which would also belie the claim it was deliberately designed by some superior Cosmic Brain.

ID speaks of a built-in ultimate purpose to evolution. If you can guess what this purpose really is you will see they are offering us a remake of the mediaevalist Great Chain of Being.

And ID tries to tie together this abstract sounding “Designer” with pre-existing cultural notions of the Christian God. This is theology, it is not science.

If I may correct your sentence which I quoted at the outset;

Atheists have no trouble at all admitting ID is better theology than natural selection. But theology has not yet found a way to warrant it being taken for scientific theory.

Absolutely loved that book! It brought together lots of puzzle pieces, was insightful, and thought provoking. Speaking of those with convoluted misconceptions, I see you’ve got a spectacular specimen here. Congrats.